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EEIU Multan (Pakistan) Reports & Letters

Report, 14 January 2005 (from Chair Ayub Sajid)

Contents

Situation of Environment in Pakistan
Global Context
State of Pakistan's Environment
Major Environmental Concerns of Pakistan
Biodiversity and Natural Capital
Factors Affecting Pakistan's Cultural Heritage

What do we mean by 'Environment'?
Major Environmental Concerns of Pakistan

Environment in its wider sense includes everything, which is external to human being. Environment is an integrated situation in which land, air, sun, water, animals, birds, insects, microbes, interact with human beings to sustain system of harmony and maximum security. Environmental pollution means the accumulation or concentration of wastes that cannot be disposed off by natural recycling processes due to their excessive quantity or unique chemical composition. There are numerous types of environmental pollution, which constitute potential dangers to humanity. Among these are physical, chemical, physiological, biological, social and moral types pollution. In a broader sense, these may be classified as water, air and land pollution. Thus, environment control means the control over such pollution so that one may live in clean and healthy surroundings.

Environmental issues are now a major concern all over the world. This is because man-made materials have polluted the water, air land and sea and it seems that the global ecosystem is facing stress whose seriousness is increasing each day. The industrialized countries have advanced to technological superiority but the enviable position which they have attained indiscriminately and by not paying due respect to the environment. The developing countries have on the other hand gone for industrialization without consolidating their gains in agriculture whose output in their cases has not been optimized of the industrialized countries are therefore; different form those of the developing countries. The difference stems from influence and deficiency in the two sets of conditions respectively. The position of affluence has on the one hand demanded maintaining of technical superiority over between affluent countries and Iraq is a clear example of this attitude. Environmental issues thus comprise a game of politics played more for maintaining superiority than that of protecting the environment.

The environment issues which have become very important during recent years range form global climatic change to indoor rain to urban smog, form hazardous wastes washing up the shoreline to invisible contamination of ground water, form deficiency of water to creation of waterlogged areas, form the impoverished to the planned urban areas and so on. The difference in each case is highly excessive. The poor are the most severely affected by the global environmental degradation, since they have the least capacity to adjust and are poorly equipped to deal with any form of set back-increased heat stress form global warming and growing incidence of skin cancer form stratospheric ozone layer depletion, changes in food production, flooding, climatic instability and changes in geographic distribution of diseases and disease vectors.

As global concerns for the environment quality increases, there is growing awareness among planners; decision makers, executives and the public that wastes should be reduced to the minimum. The cheaper and efficient methods of recycling and conversion into at least harmless products of all kinds of wastes must be found. This need has become still more pressing in view of the growing population of the world, which poses a permanent threat to natural resources. Man has, therefore, no alternative but to look into every possible technology, which might ensure the continuous survival of man.

Humanity's impact on the earth and its resources has increased at an unprecedented rate with every decade in the last two centuries, and with every year in the most recent decades. Human activities are now affected some of the most basic climatic and biological cycles of the planet. Pakistan, with a per capita gross national product just one-ninth the world average, is neither a major global polluter nor a large consumer of resources. The average Pakistani contributes only one-seventeenth the world average of carbon dioxide emissions, the greenhouse gas responsible for half the global warming expected in the next few decades. Pakistan produces no chlorafluoro and few sulphur dioxide emissions, and thus makes a negligible contribution to ozone depletion and acid rain. Although global fisheries are reaching the limits of harvesting, for example, Pakistan is a small in fact an underrepresented user of the global commons.

Yet Pakistan is a densely settled land, facing rapid population increase and highly dependent on natural resources, with severe physical capital scarcities and limited skill development. As such, it is likely to suffer disproportionately from climate change and other global environmental problems. The implications of the greenhouse effect for Pakistan are difficult to predict, but could potentially be large, affecting patterns of agriculture, fisheries and forestry. In wet areas, the monsoon is expected to become more vigorous, arid areas could become drier, the receding of mountain glaciers may reduce inflows for irrigation agriculture, and low-lying areas may become satirized by saltwater intrusion owing to seal level rise.

In terms of global co-operation on these issues, Pakistan is an important contracting party to a number of international conventions, but several other key agreements, such as the ocean dumping convention, also merit the Government's consideration. Pakistan has recently joined and contributed to the newly established Global Environmental facility managed by the World Bank; projects to draw from this facility should be prepared expeditiously. New international initiatives, such as a global environmental charter and an agenda for the twenty first century, are also being developed.

Pakistan, the tenth most popular country in the world, has the fourteenth highest rate of increase among countries with more than one million people. It covers only 0.67% of the world's land, contains 2% of the world's people but in the next ten years will account for 4% of world population growth. Pakistan's natural resources and environment are critical to its future.

The annual of cultivable land is nearly matched by the amount of land actually being cultivated. Yet Pakistan has ample potential to increase its agricultural production, by multiple cropping and increasing yields per hectare. Many physical and institutional reasons account for the low intensity of use and low outputs. The most important physical sources are water and wind erosion, salinity/sodality, water logging, flooding and loss of organic matter.

Watershed lands in the upper Indus, its tributaries suffer from quite unfavorable soil and moisture regimes, and their management for forestry, agriculture and soil, and water conservation leaves much to be desired. Closed cover forests account for less than a million hectares. Accelerated surface erosion is reducing the life of the reservoirs on which irrigation depends. Pakistan relies on irrigation more than 60% of its food and fiber production. Only about 30% of diverted water reaches the crop roots. The rest is last in canals and watercourses or during application in the field. Groundwater is a secondary or derived source of the total annual recharge of groundwater, estimated at 46 MAF, more than 41 MAF are drawn up by tube-wells and used, most of the unutilized recharge is in areas of saline ground water. Simultaneously, overgrazing has brought down the productivity of rangelands to as little as 15.40% of their potential. Three-fourths of the animals are of non-descript species, and the livestock sector is caught in a downward spiral of too many sick animals chasing too little feed.

The coastal strip of Pakistan is arid, and mangrove leaf litter constitutes a major source of nutrients. Primary productivity of mangrove-covered deltaic areas is four to seven times those of coastal areas without mangroves. Most tropical marine species pass at least one stage of their life cycle in mangroves. Yet mangroves are under increasing environmental stress form reduced fresh water flows, form sewage and industrial pollution, from fodder, fuel wood, and timber extraction, and from clear feeling for development. Fisheries make a small but significant contribution to Pakistan's economy. The level of effort per unit catch has been rising with increased harvesting, and the landings of large and medium-sized shrimp collapsed a number of years in a row during the 1980s.

The country has a great variety and richness of fauna, flora, wetlands, and other wildlife habitats and landscapes. Pakistan has given serious thought to protecting its biological resources, yet the coverage of ecosystem in the country's national parks and protected places is far from comprehensive, the policing of existing parks are inadequate and operational management plans exist for just a few. There is a steep rising demand and decreasing supply of wildlife. The ibex, snow leopard, wild ass, and houbara bustard all face extinction from hunting pressure. A greater threat is disappearance of habitat. Imbalance in the natural order has other long-range consequences, such as increase in the number of wild boars, whose trampling of crops has reduced the number of snakes, leading in turn to the increase in the number of wild boars, whose trampling of crops has reduced the number of snakes leading in turn to the increase in rats that is responsible for large post-harvest losses of grain.

Pakistan is both energy-poor and energy-profligate. Reserve of oil and gas, which are relied on heavily are small. Known gas reserves have a life expectancy of 16 years. Domestic oil production meets less than a quarter of needs, with the balance imported at 9 high cost in foreign exchange earnings. Only 11% of hydel potential has been developed to date, and there has been a significant increase in demonstrated and measured coal reserves in recent years. However, both hydel development and coal generation could have serious ecological and social impact if not properly managed. Alternative energy sources have as yet been largely undeveloped. There are significant opportunities to treat energy conservation as new source of supply; transmission and distribution losses are high; the industrial sector could save 22% of the energy it uses with no loss of output; tube-well efficiencies could be improved by 5% through tune-ups alone.

With a 5000-year history of civilization, Pakistan has a rich cultural heritage of archaeological remains, monuments, old cities, and historic and architecturally significant buildings and streets, as well as social customs, crafts, and oral traditions for the wise use of natural resources. Although preservation of our cultural heritage should be a chief preoccupation, it is largely neglected. Natural deterioration of these cities is being accelerated by vandalism, encroachment and intensive restoration.

Degradation of Soils and Land

The most important sources of reduced land productivity in Pakistan are water and wind erosion, salinity/sodicity, water logging, flooding and loss of organic matter. 15 million hectares under irrigation are unlikely to be decertified. But remains an ever-present menace that becomes a reality when the vegetation that protects the soils is harvested, cropped or gazed faster than it can grow. The opportunity to raise output justifies making substantial efforts to develop alternative range management approaches without such initiatives; these lands are likely to move in the other direction-towards desertification.

Pakistan has nine major ecological zones and 21 out of 22 of the recognized Asian wetland types. The contribution of these resources ids recognized at three distinct levels. Species, genera, and communities (habitats and ecosystem). The greater the number of these present within these units, the greater is said to be the biodiversity. Federal and provincial authorities have made significant attempt since independence to protect biodiversity and natural capital e.g., establishing different national parks, wildlife sanctuaries and game reserves. Pakistan is also signatory of virtually all the major international agreements in this field i.e. CITIES, RAMSAR, BONN, IUCN, IWRB. Other measures include conservation of educational programs and initiatives, the activities of non-governmental organizations, legal instruments and research and management activities. All these have given several previously endangered species, a new lease on life including the Indus Dolphin, Marine Turtles, Sindh Ibex, and Markhar and Waterfowl species.

The use of wild population of plants and animals is one of the oldest traditions in human society. We depend today on biological resources for many of the necessities of life all our food, nearly half our medicine, much of our clothing and in some regions virtually all our fuel and building materials. These resources also provide, of course, an important part of our psychological and spiritual well-being. The world may need to return to the wild to increase yields disease resistance or the ability to thrive in a niche inhospitable to conventional varieties.

Virtually all ecosystems are in a state of decline; little Government expenditure is allocated for it. A multi-purpose designation that seeks to protect wildlife as well as respond to the rapid rise in demand for outdoor recreation and both domestic and international tourism is required. Designation of protected areas without essential means of enforcing the objectives of the overall programme through policing, inducement, or local populace involvement is simply inadequate. Dedicated and capable park wardens have neither the tools at their disposal nor the support and co-operation of other government agencies to accomplish the job they want and need to do.

Water Erosion

Susceptibility to water erosion is a function of eight major factors: Stop length and steepness, rainfall amount and intensity soil type and structure, land use and % of vegetative area. Land use, vegetative cover and management practices are the operational variables in any programme: nature over eons of years will reduce the Himalayas to sea level, but the rate at which the weathering occurs will either be hastened or retarded by the way in which a water shed is used and managed. The 11 million hectares of Pakistan experiencing water erosion are directly affected by loss of productivity, gulling and mass wastage. The sedimentation of the Canal System is a source of decreasing water and land use efficiencies, starting with the reservoirs but extending throughout the conveyance system. Somewhat balancing these losses, there are some soil gain due to deposition associated with flooding and wind erosion. For the most part, any such gains occur primarily in the no mount anions areas of Pakistan.

Wind Erosion

In total, just over 2 million hectares in Pakistan are experiencing moderate to severe wind erosion and are consequently losing between 1.5% and 7.5% of their productivity per year, one of the difficulties with wind erosion is that it tends to be both selective and invisible. The first elements to below are the fine silts and organizing matter, the most productive portion of the soil. The soil particles are removed very evenly; wind erosion does not leave scars in the forms of gullies and mass wastage. Nevertheless picks up the most productive part of the topsoil.

Salinity and Sodicity

These are the soil degradation processes associated with irrigation. The greatest incidence therefore, occurs in the Sindh and the Punjab — 2.1 million and 2.6 million hectares, respectively. When the water-table rises in cultivated land, if it is not transpired by plants, the water will evaporate, leaving salts — sodium or sodium carbonate behind making the soil either saline or sodic. The inherent fertility of these lands is very low but could be improved by good management, along with substantial inputs of capitals.

Water Logging

The area suffering from water logging have been defined here as those where the water table is within 1 meter of the soil surface. The Sindh province suffers the most from water logging. Its impacts are not confined to the effects of water upon crop growth. There is an interaction with salinity levels. In rice-growing areas, a water table even shallower than 1 meter may not injure the crop. But this is not the only qualification, other factors that have a bearing on water logging include water quality, soil type and precipitation/evaporation ratios. In 120,000 hectares of Pakistan, the water table is 'sweet'. It can be used to grow high-delta crop or phytophreatic trees and grasses.

Flooding

It includes both the flooding of rivers and the pounding associated with poor drainage. It prohibits cultivation during the summer season, destroys farmhouses and other facilities and buries fertile topsoil under relatively infertile sediment on the other hand; it provides a through soaking for the growth of winter crops and leaches salt from the soil. Only in Punjab 7% of the area is subject of flooding.

Low Organic Matter

Organic matter plays an important role in soils, both in their physical structure and as a medium for biological processes. It helps soils to retain both moisture and nutrients by absorbing water readily and releasing it slowly and monitors soil structure. It helps to maintain tilt, which provide support to roots and permits them to penetrate the soil. Pakistan's soils are extremely low in organic matter in turn reducing the productivity but have the effect of 'draining' other macro and micronutrients rather quickly. Organic matter can be supplied to the soil by a variety of management practices, e.g., incorporating agricultural residues, green manuring and applying farmyard manure.

Organic matter loss also occurs when cotton twigs are collected as cooking or heating fuel. These can be used to produce an even more convenient and effective fuel, their organic matter can be retained if they were to be gasified in an open-core gasified. Pakistan has only a limited supply of fossil fuels i.e., oil. It is available but it does not mean they well have to be imparted and likely at increasing costs. Wind and solar energy sources have as yet been largely undeveloped in Pakistan. Recent studies have shown the variability of solar energy for water heating and the powering of lift pumps in villages.

The environmental implications of current and projected energy supply and consumption pattern are considerable, and could have serious ecological and social impacts if not properly managed. It is possible to quantify the economic costs and benefits associated with the environment damage and control measures associated with energy development-costs include those for improved processes of fuel combustion in thermal creation and for pollution control equipment to reduce sulphur and particulate emissions. Benefits include reduce health effects and medical expenses form less air pollution and the increased economic life of hydel facilities from upland watershed management.

Municipal and Industrial Waste

In Pakistan sewage systems are limited to parts of a few major cities and the remaining urban population depends for waste disposal on septic tanks, soak pits or overflows into storm drains, with about 50 to 55% of the urban population having access to the sewage system. Only two cities in Pakistan possess sewage treatment plants — Karachi and Islamabad. Karachi has three treatment plants, two with a capacity of 20 MGD and third with 5 MGD, which function only intermittently treating only 30 MGD of the sewage.

Lahore discharge 389 MGD of untreated raw sewage into Ravi River, as a result of which aquatic life has suffered causing a loss of 5000 tons of fish per annum.

Industrial pollution control or waste recycling, treatment and disposal system in most of the industries in Pakistan are non-existent, with the result that the industries are free to discharge their pollutants and wastes anywhere. Such practice if continued at the present scale can cause irreversible damage to the ecosystem. The effect of waste discharged into the water bodies has important implications for the fisheries industry.

Cultural Heritage

Cultural heritage is both a resource and an asset, consisting of physical features as archaeological remains, movements, settlements, individual buildings, transport routes and work of art, and of less tangible forms, notably social customs, language and oral traditions. A country's heritage carries with it a sense of identity place and purpose that successive generation can derive from the various assets. They have both aesthetic and economic values, they stimulate enquiry, business enterprise and social, religious, research and academic interest, they provide recreational enjoyment for resident, visitors alike, and they serve as places of residence. If provides insight into the social, political, economic, cultural and technical forces and values that have fashioned it.

Numerous movements and potential preservation/conservation areas said to exist all over Pakistan, but the Department of Archaeology has not been able to list them owing to personnel and monetary constraints.

• Urbanization trends
• Poor conservation
• Environmental pollution
• Short of both physical and financial resources
• Whole district or communities of buildings and their settings is totally overlook and only individual movements are regarded as show-pieces for tourism
• No proper recognition from the Government
• Past policies have focused on industrial and economic growth at the cost of environmental issues and the quality of life

• Lack of awareness
• Socio-cultural constraints
• Lack of education
• Scarcity of professionals, archaeologists and conservationists
• Lack of co-ordination between authorities
• Absence of firm criteria for selecting and grading heritage resources
• Natural hazards-flooding, rain and storm, climate fluctuations, earthquakes, and excessive growth of vegetation

Reasons for the overall decline of the resources in Pakistan

• Rapid growth in human population
• Increasing numbers of livestock
• Commercial forestry practices
• Increasing use of fertilizers and pesticides
• Expanding agriculture
• Increasing number of industries polluted land, water and air
• Expanding settlements encroaching on wildlife habitats
• Water supply and energy-generating developments distributing aquatic eco-system and increasing pollution
• Transportation, commercial, tourism and harbour developments
• Hunting at levels of exploitation leading to a serious decline in breeding population
• Irrigated land a major threat to revering and mangrove forests
• Relentless, incremental incursions into the forest by farmers
• Killing trees through lopping, burning and tapping
• Increase in the number of wild boars, jackals and porcupines are directly attributed to the elimination of large cats, snakes. Also increase in the number of rats responsible for large post-harvest losses of grain

Pakistan has enormous deposits of marble, limestone, dolomite, and silica sand, fairly large deposits of chromite and significant reserves of coal, iron, copper, gypsum, rock salt and bauxite. The exploitation of minerals is a high-risk, long-gestation investment that requires a steadily growing industrial demand. The contribution of mining and quarrying to the gross domestic product was only around 0.8% in 1988-89. the most of the growth in demand has arisen form the construction rather than the industrial and agriculture sectors.

Commercial energy (fuel and electricity) met approximately 68% of Pakistan's energy requirement, while non-commercial sources (fuel wood and biomass) accounted for the other 32%.

Impacts of mining activities

• Deterioration of slopes and disruption of drainage
• Noise and wildlife disturbance
• Deterioration of stream recharge
• Deterioration of watershed, flashfloods and sitting of down stream reservoirs
• Removal of top soil, permanent loss to agriculture
• Water importable for considerable distance down stream
• Noxious gases, health hazard, depressant effect on agriculture yield, toxic to animals specially birds
• Major aquifer / fresh water pollution
• Dust pollution
• Unnecessary herbage, risk of accidents

• Scientific mining plans, systematic working, mined area restoration plans
• Enforcement of regulation
• Land and soil rehabilitation
• Planning for soil regeneration and protection by plantation
• Use of retrievable steel props
• Packing of mineral solid wastes underground
• Containment measures, solution mining techniques
• Local mineral washing and beneficiation plants
• Covered vehicles/covering devices to avoid spills and fugitive emissions evolute

• No research centers for improvement of mining methods
• No linkage between mine operators and universities
• Absence of machinery
• Small scale of operations
• Lack of institutional framework / lack of law implementation
• Large initial capital investment
• Lack of consciousness and absence of regulations on conservation of fresh water sources
• Absence of appropriate and effective regulatory arrangements
• Lack of venture capital

Water pollution

Water is essential for all life. In order to support a healthy population water must not be only available but it must be relatively unpolluted as well. It becomes polluted when materials are added to natural water and it become less useful and desirable for humans. Sewage fertilizers and phosphate in the water may lead to severe ecological disruption by reducing aquatic animals and plants. Intern Algae grow rapidly consuming large quantities of oxygen and fish will eventually suffocate and die. Industrial wastes and chemicals destroy plankton, fish, mussels, shrimp, snails and even insects that live along the water's edge. Factories and chemical plants are required to install elaborate water purification systems as part of there manufacturing operations. This process is never 100% complete and 'purified' industrial wastewater cannot be assumed to be fit to drink.

The pollution of ground water has become a growing problem in recent years. It can be polluted either by sewage residence or by industrial chemicals. One polluted water has accumulated in deep layers of rock; there is little oxygen available for purification. Thus natural decay and cleansing do not operate efficiently. And it is also very difficult to assess the full extent of the pollution of underground supplies or to purify these systems artificially. Many ground water systems move very slowly, so the removal of pollutants by flushing out to sea could take decades or even centuries. The quantity of pollutants dumped into the ocean has grown so large that some scientists fear that global effects may be significant. Another economic damage is done by the ship accidents spilling oil into the sea, killing millions of sea birds, plankton fish etc. 90% of the oil in the oceans form washing out ships (oily holds) with sea water. Approximately ten millions tons of oil per year find its way into the sea.

The effects of water pollution on human health

The pollution of water supplies on a worldwide scale is probably responsible for more human illness then any other environmental influence. _ of the people living on this planet do not have access to safe drinking water, and this cause:

• Water bone infections disease major cause of infant mortality
• Schistosomiasis-group of disease caused by infection with worm. People affected do not die outright but have little energy and cannot work or care for their families effectively.

• Domestic wastes should be collected in pits from which they were periodically shoveled out and carted away.
• Wherever attainable, to achieve an interim goal of water quality that provides protection, encourages propagation of fish, shellfish and wildlife, and provides for recreation in and on the water.
• To eliminate the discharge of pollutants into the navigable waters
• To prohibit the discharge of toxic pollutants in toxic amounts
• To provide feudal financial assistance to construct publicly owned waste-treatment works
• To make a major research and demonstration effort to develop technology necessary to eliminate the discharge of pollution into navigable waters and the oceans
• Piping liquid sewage directly to farms and wood lands, where it may be sprayed as fertilizer
• Plantation on the threatened slopes
• Construction of benches
• Restricted stone collection and spoil dumping
• Prohibition to use the indigenous fishing methods

To date, the extent of awareness with regard to environment, particularly the protection and optional utilization of natural resources and natural systems has been highly variable in development programs. Conversely, development aspects, especially human development aspects, are not always taken into consideration in many programs of environmental protection and improvement.

Integration of the two aspects is therefore, necessary in order to arrive at sustainable solutions. For this purpose following points are crucially important:

• Problems pertaining to the immediate environment of the poor, such as the lack of safe water, adequate sanitation and other basic amenities need to be urgently addressed
• Empowerment of people and communities in self-development as well as protection and optional utilization of natural resources and natural systems should be incorporated as integral parts
• Awareness rising of environmental and sustainable development issues is crucial for both adults and children in both developing and industrialized countries-formal, non-formal, and third channel activities
• Ecological vulnerable places such as fragile mountain ecosystem and rainforests and areas subject to drought and desertification need to be targeted on a priority basis
• There is a critical and urgent need to address the problem of biomass requirements for the poor for household fuel shelter, food and fodder
• Much more action is required with regard to toxic chemical and urban pollution. Since such issues have complex and underlying social, political and legal under-pinning, advocacy to influence the root cause is necessary
• Safe and efficient waste management requires a system that could internalize the costs and benefits of three activities-collection, extraction of recyclable material and disposal

What Do We Mean By 'Environment'?

Environment in its wider sense includes everything which is external to a human being. Environment is an integrated situation in which land, air, sun, water, animals, birds, insects, microbes, interact with human beings to sustain a system of harmony and maximum security. Environmental pollution means the accumulation or concentration of wastes that cannot be disposed off by natural recycling processes due to their excessive quantity or unique chemical composition. There are numerous types of environmental pollution which constitute potential dangers to humanity. Among these are physical, chemical, physiological biological, social and moral types pollution. In a broader sense, these may be classified as water, air and land pollution. Thus, environment control means the control over such pollution so that one may live in clean and healthy surroundings.

Environmental issues are now a major concern all over the world. This is because man-made materials have polluted the water, air, land and sea and its seems that the global ecosystem is facing stress whose seriousness is increasing each day. The industrialized countries have advanced to technological superiority but the enviable position which they have attained indiscriminately and by not paying due respect to the environment. The developing countries have on the other hand gone for industrialization without consolidating their gains in agriculture whose output in their cases has not been optimized of the industrialized countries are therefore, different from those of the developing countries. The difference stems from influence and deficiency in he two sets of conditions respectively. The position of affluence has on the one hand demanded maintaining of technical superiority over between affluent countries and Iraq is a clear example of this attitude. Environmental issues thus comprise a game of politics played more fore maintaining superiority that of protecting the environment.

The environment issues which have become very important during recent years range from global climatic change to indoor rain to urban smog, from hazardous wastes washing up the shoreline to invisible contamination of ground water, from deficiency of water to creation of waterlogged areas, from he impoverished to the planned urban areas and so on. The difference in each case is highly excessive. The poor are the most severely affected by the global environmental degradation, since they have the least capacity to adjust an are poorly equipped to deal with growing incidence of skin cancer from stratospheric ozone layer depletion, changes in food production, flooding, climatic instability and changes in geographic distribution of diseases and disease vectors.

As global concerns for the environment quality increases, there is growing awareness among planners; decision makers, executives and the public that wastes should be reduced to the minimum. The cheaper and efficient methods of recycling and conversion into at least harmless products of all kinds of wastes must be found. This need has become still more pressing in view of the growing population of the world which poses a permanent threat to natural resources. Man has, therefore, no alternative but to look into every possible technology which might ensure the continuous survival of man.

Major Environmental Concerns of Pakistan

There are several factors in Pakistan which effects the environment but following are the major aspects!

1. Water Erosion
2. Wind Erosion
3. Salinity and Sodicity
4. Water Logging
5. Flooding
6. Low Organic Matter
7. Municipal and Industrial Waste
8. Cultural heritage